Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Mark Twain : The War Prayer Pt. 1 Bahrain "We Do Not Torture" We Heard That Before From Bush & Obama Just More Propaganda

Mark Twain The War Prayer 2.

Bahrain officials say they do not torture even in the face of overwhelming that they do torture
Bush & Obama both lied saying America did not torture
Bahrain uses America's irrational fears about Iran to justify its brutal crackdown on Protesters, dissidents etc.
They also appeal to conspiracy theories no matter how far fetched-ie doctors storing weapons for the insurrection???- Pure unadulterated BS.
Unfortunately many in the US media tend to fall in line especially in their demonization of Iran.

So much for superiour Western Values as the USA and its allies and client states, colonies and satelitte states are given the "Green Light" to treat protesters and dissidents and reformers in as draconian and harsh manner as possible.

As Hillary Clinton said about Bahrain that "We do not interfere with the internal affairs of other nations" of course except for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Libya.
But American history in the last fifty years has been one of America time and again interfering with other nations internal affairs ie Egypt, Gautemala, Iran, Iraq, Honduras, Chile, El Salvador , Korea , Vietnam, laos , Thailand, Sudan, Haiti and on and on.

But Clinton and Obama like Bush and Cheney before them insists that Americans should ignore the past and focus on the future .

According to most Americans and their media and government adhere to the notion of American exceptionalism that is whatever America does is beyond reproach
When America uses torture techniques it has a good reason for it
Anyone detained or incarcerated by US authorities by definition these detainees are therefore guilty as alleged.
When America carpet bombs a nation it is for the good of not just America's interest but is done for the people of that nations own good.
When America's superiour forces used its tactics of "Shock and Awe " in Iraq killing thousands of innocent people this was in order to save them from Saddam and when the Americans twice bombed the hell out of cities such as Fallujah this was to supposedly rid the area of evil insurgents and not merely as retaliation for a few Americans killed

What America has done again and again is to ignore International Laws regarding the prohibition on the use of "collective punishment" on the civilian populations ie Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis and Pashtuns.
The NAZI were infamous for their use of "Collective Punishment" on civilian populations.
It was in response to the Nazis use of "Collective Punishment" which led to the prohibition of this tactic yet American, Brits, Canadian armed forces see no contradiction in their use of this tactic.
Some more cynical observers might claim one of the reasons for such tactics is to create the impression having control over areas where in fact this is not the case
Another reason for the tactic is that it makes for good TV viewing by Americans at home
So it is both entertaining and helps the American citizenry and media feel more secure and knowing their tax dollars are not going to waste in these unnecessary war and conflicts.

Why because if one administration was to investigate fully and honestly a former administration this would open up a precedent so that Obama's administration once removed from power through elections could then also be investigated for any wrong doing and no president wants to open that can of worms.

This is a convenient sort of Propaganda tactic so that none of those in authority in the past or the present can be investigated let alone be charge with criminal offences such as perpetuating a War of Aggression against iraq or Libya or the necessity of "agent provocateurs " and other under the radar actions against Iran .

So as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia continue with their oppression of Shiites this is supposedly justified because the Shiites in either country are allegedly being supported by Iran.

The thing is that Iran is not an Arab country but rather Persian and there is some tension between Shiites in Bahrain and the Iranians.

Former President Bush and the current president Obama should be proud that Bahrain is using torture on inmates just like the USA has at Gitmo and at Abu Ghriab and dozens of other detention centers under American control in Iraq, Afghanistan , Pakistan etc.
The Bahrain government is also getting false confessions out of detainees just like the American military and CIA have done.

Bahrain's authorities claim they do not torture is this like George W. Bush's assertion which was a lie that "we do not torture" that is America does not use torture except when it does use torture. Or Americans define torture as specific acts such as "waterboarding" and redefines torture as acts which would cause organ failure or death.
So according to the US government, military, CIA and America's Media there is no such thing as psychological torture such as sleep deprivation , intimidation, harassment, insults or attacks on a detainees religious beliefs or humiliating detainees by stripping detainees naked or have them perform simulated sexual acts with each other or with guards including female guards and so on.

Saudi-backed Bahraini troops have attacked anti-government protesters in several villages near the capital Manama, witnesses say.

Despite the lifting of martial law in the tiny Persian Gulf sheikdom on Wednesday, regime forces are beating up people who had poured into the streets to stage protest rallies, Head of Foreign Relation Office of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights Maryam al-Khawaja wrote in an e-mail sent to Press TV.

According to witnesses, dozens of people were injured after regime forces fired birdshots and teargas on protesters in villages around Manama, including Diraz, Bani Jamrah and Karzakan.

Al-Khawaja says the wounded were shifted to their homes instead of hospitals because in Bahrain, being wounded by security forces has become a reason for arrest.

Opposition activists in Bahrain called for fresh wave of anti-government protest rallies across the country on Wednesday as a state of emergency imposed during a March crackdown on protesters has ended.

"The protests are to be in main streets and squares ... the movement must return to important places ahead of the imminent return, God willing, to Martyr's Square," said a post on "February 14 Revolution Youth Coalition" Facebook page, referring to the site of the demolished Pearl Square, which was the focal point of anti-government demonstrations from February until being destroyed during the government crackdown in March.

Bahraini activists say their protest campaign will continue until the nation's demands are met.

Amnesty International had called on Manama to allow the planned protest rallies to go ahead and stop using violence against peaceful protesters.

Bahraini protesters demand an end to the rule of Al Khalifa dynasty.

Since anti-government protests began in Bahrain in mid-February, regime forces, backed by a 1,000-strong Saudi military contingent, have abducted many people, including opposition activists, journalists, teachers, students, doctors, and nurses, and destroyed dozens of mosques and other religious sites.

Scores of people have been killed and many more arrested in the Saudi-backed crackdown on peaceful protests in Bahrain.

Are the authorites in Bahrain playing the same word games as Bush and Obama by redefining torture so that torture techniques America uses are according to their Newspeak no longer to be called torture but rather "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques".

In both countries alleged terrorists or other so called enemies of the state are tortured inorder to produce dodgy confessions and the signing of legal contracts which stipulate the released inmates not talk about their treatment in detention centers.

But of course Bahrain is going to say it does not torture otherwise they would be admitting to criminal acts or acts that would be criticized by the United Nations or the International Criminal Court or other human rights organizations such as Amnest International, the International Committee of the Red Cross or Human Rights Watch and so forth.

DUBAI — Bahrain's interior ministry on Monday denied claims made to AFP by female Shiite doctors that they were abused and tortured while in detention over their alleged backing for anti-regime protests.

"The claims and allegations made by female doctors in the AFP report are not only baseless but scurrilous," said a ministry statement emailed to the agency.

"The Bahrain authorities affirm that very high standards of human rights norms are being followed at all detention / interrogation centres in the country."

Several female doctors who were released recently had told AFP they were abused and tortured at the hands of interrogators in detention centres, amid a massive crackdown on the Shiite majority after security forces quelled a month-long protest in mid-March.

The women said they were forced under severe beating and verbal abuse to confess to backing their co-religionist protesters and abusing their positions.

Some said they were made to testify against colleagues at Salmaniya hospital accused of lying and exaggerating on satellite channels to pile pressure on the government.

There were also claims of verbal sexual harassment.

...The authorities have said that 47 medics -- 24 doctors and 23 nurses -- have been referred to a special court set up under the state of national safety declared by King Hamad a day before the March 16 crackdown on demonstrators.

Authorities have said that 24 people, including four policemen, were killed in the unrest.
Bahrain was strongly criticised by rights groups for its heavy-handed clampdown on Shiites following the crushing of the protests demanding major political reforms in the kingdom ruled by the Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty.

MANAMA, June 1 (Reuters) - Bahraini Shi'ites say they have endured a reign of terror during 11 weeks of martial law imposed to break up a pro-democracy movement that for the first time threatened the control of a Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab dynasty.

Martial law was lifted on Wednesday. The authorities hope this will show investors and tourists that the island state is back to normal. Shi'ite dissidents fear repression will go on.

Thousands have been detained or dismissed from jobs in a crackdown that has targeted those who took part in six weeks of protests centred on the capital's Pearl Roundabout. Dozens of Shi'ite places of worship have been pulled down or vandalised.

Twenty-one people, seven of whom are abroad, are on military trial for trying to overthrow the government. They include figures from Shi'ite opposition parties who had advocated making Bahrain a republic, as well as the Sunni leader of secular group Waad and independent Shi'ite rights activists.

Four people have died in custody and two Shi'ites have been sentenced to death for the killing of a policeman.

The crackdown has for now stifled an unprecedented pro-democracy movement inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia that toppled long-time U.S. allies. The government says the protests were manipulated by Shi'ite power Iran.

TEACHERS, DOCTORS HELD

A teacher in Hamad Town said she and 25 colleagues were hauled out of their school one morning last week by women police who came in two buses.

"They asked us if we went to the roundabout, did we want to bring down the government, and they hinted that they would abuse us sexually once we arrived at the station," the teacher said.

"They made us sing the national anthem and say 'the people want Khalifa bin Salman'," the powerful prime minister of 42 years who is seen as a hardliner in the ruling family.

In the local police station some of the women faced sexual harrassment, the teacher said. "They sexually harrased most of us, but there are things I can't say that they did," she said.

"Some teachers never went to the roundabout but had to admit that they did. I was there and admitted that I was, but they wanted me to say I had got a mut'a marriage," she said, referring to a Shi'ite form of temporary marriage.

"They said 'Your loyalty is to Iran, let Iran take care of you'. They called us Zoroastrians and said we teach prostitution."

The women were forced to sign papers vowing good behaviour and readiness to return to police stations if requested, which would circumvent the ending of the emergency laws.

Dozens of doctors and nurses have also been arrested and around 19 doctors remain in detention. It is not yet clear how many will face trial and on what charges.

State media have said doctors were storing weapons in a nearby hospital during the protests, using ambulances to transfer weapons and stealing government medicines to run a makeshift health centre at Pearl Roundabout.

Some were accused of splattering protesters with blood to inflate the numbers of wounded after security forces killed four in a botched attempt to clear the roundabout on Feb. 17.

One who has been released but does not know if charges will be pressed said she was threatened with rape.

"They said 'We are 14 guys in this room, do you know what we can do to you? It's the emergency law and we're free to do what we want'," she said. Two doctors said a group was forced to record confessions which they believe are intended for Bahrain TV. The channel has aired previous apparent doctor confessions.

A Western diplomat said: "We 100 percent believe torture takes place. But the detail of what abuse and the evidence is unclear."

Bahrain rights activists have reported abuse that some of the 14 men facing military trial have mentioned in court.

Families and lawyers of the men facing trial each have 10 minutes after the court sessions to speak to the accused.

The son of one said an electric drill had been applied on at least one occasion to his father's leg by military interrogators with Iraqi accents.

"In the 1990s they used electricity on him but this time it was much worse. Now they use a machine with wires," he said, adding this was in three weeks of interrogation before trial.

"They make him kiss a photo of King Hamad (of Bahrain), King Abdullah (of Saudi Arabia) and the prime minister in the morning and then sing the national anthem," he said, adding his father said his captors had urinated on him.

Nabeel Rajab of the Bahrain Human Rights Society said two of the 14 men on trial said in court they had marks made by electric drills. The government has said it is investigating abuse reported by Nazeeha Saeed, a Bahraini correspondent for France 24 television, when she was detained for some 12 hours last week.

Reporters Without Borders said she was beaten by women interrogators to force her to confess that she works with Shi'ite-run TV channels al-Manar and al-Aalam.

They beat her with plastic tubes, made her bray like a donkey on all-fours and tried to make her drink a bottle of what they said was urine, the group said in a statement. (

and elsewhere in the news
NATO still bombing Libya & going well beyond UN/Nato agreements
Egypt renews relations with Iran
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused by Iranian legislators of ignoring constitution

An Iranian official has criticized the West's double-standard approach to the issue of human rights in the Middle East and North Africa and condemned the NATO-led war in Libya as “unacceptable.”

“Politically motivated and instrumental approaches to the honorable issue of human rights are by no means acceptable and will yield no result,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for European Affairs Ali Ahani said in a meeting with the director general of the Middle East and North Africa Department of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, Robert Rydberg, in Tehran on Tuesday.

“The devastation of Libya's economic infrastructure by NATO's bombardments, based on wrong and egotistical interpretations of the [UN] Security Council's resolution, is unacceptable and deplorable,” Ahani stated.

The Iranian deputy foreign minister urged the international community to compel the Western powers to revise their biased approach to the recent developments in the Middle East and North Africa.

“The international community's efforts to enforce a basic democratic framework based on respect for the principle 'one individual, one vote' will make a great contribution to solving the issues in the region,” Ahani asserted.

NATO has conducted hundreds of sorties over Libya since it assumed control of a military campaign to impose a no-fly zone over the country and save civilian lives in late March.

Recent reports indicate that many civilians have also been killed in the UN-mandated aerial offensives.

Iranian lawmakers have agreed to submit a report to the country's judiciary on “legal violations of the government” in the appointment of a caretaker for the Oil Ministry.

Many Majlis (parliament) deputies have voiced their opposition to a decision by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to temporarily run the Oil Ministry, arguing that the move is “illegal,” Majlis news agency (ICANA) reported.

During the Wednesday session of the Majlis, 165 lawmakers voted in favor of the report and 1 voted against it while 13 abstained from voting.

Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani also said that the deputies made the decision based on article 233 of the internal Majlis by-laws and regulations.

Last month, Iran's Guardian Council also stated that President Ahmadinejad's decision to take charge of the ministry is against the provisions of Article 135 of Iran's Constitution.

The council, which is charged with interpreting the Constitution, argues that according to the article, the Iranian chief executive is only allowed to appoint a caretaker minister for three months.

In a televised speech on May 15, President Ahmadinejad said he would run Iran's Oil Ministry temporarily following his decision to relieve three Iranian ministers of their duties as part of a plan to merge ministries.

The Iranian government announced plans on May 9 to merge the ministries of Roads and Transportation with Housing and Urban Development, Energy with Oil, Industries and Mines with Commerce, and Welfare and Social Security with Labor and Social Affairs.

The Iranian foreign minister has described the visit of an Egyptian delegation to Iran as the herald of the resumption of relations between Tehran and Cairo.

A delegation of 50 social, cultural and religious Egyptian figures arrived in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Tuesday for a five-day visit.

“The trip of a group of Egyptian thinkers, including al-Azhar University and Christian minority elite … was a measure toward preparing ground to improve relations between Tehran and Cairo,” Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday.

Salehi added that Iran was ready to resume relations with Egypt as soon as possible.

Iran severed ties with Egypt after Cairo signed the 1978 Camp David Accords with the Israeli regime and offered asylum to Iran's deposed dictator, Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi.

As part of efforts to resume diplomatic ties, Salehi and his Egyptian counterpart Nabil al-Arabi met last week on the sidelines of the 16th conference of foreign ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement on the island of Bali in Indonesia.

Salehi said better Iran-Egypt ties would benefit the entire region and called on the two countries to clear any possible misunderstandings.